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The man suspected of plowing a car through a Georgia front yard and into two young girls, seriously injuring one of them, before crashing into a house was arrested Tuesday, days after he ran away from the crash scene.
Gabriel Jabri Fordham, 28, was charged with a felony count of serious injury by vehicle, according to the DeKalb Sheriff's Office. He is also charged with four misdemeanor counts — failure to maintain a lane, failure to stop at a stop sign, reckless driving and hit-and-run.
Surveillance video showed the harrowing moment a black sedan sped through a stop sign, across a street and into a Lithonia front yard, mowing down LaDerihanna Holmes, 9, and her friend who were playing outside Friday evening.
The black Ford came to a stop with the front half inside of the house and the back half outside. The driver and a passenger ran from the scene as people from the neighborhood and inside the house rushed to aid the little girls.
Fordham's attorney Ryan C. Williams said in a statement that his client was not at fault and that the other person in the car was trying "to rob and carjack my client a fight ensued inside the vehicle that caused the accident."
LaDerihanna, who loves to cheerlead and dance, suffered a fractured skull, and her pelvic bone is broken in three places, her mother, Charlette Bolton, said.
She has been moved from a hospital to a rehabilitation center where she is expected to spend weeks in physical therapy, her brother Trevon Hughley told NBC affiliate WXIA.
"She will have to learn to walk again," said the family's attorney, Chris Stewart.
But after seeing the video, he and LaDerihanna's family recognize she's lucky to be alive. The car "didn't just hit her, it threw her through a brick wall," Stewart said.
LaDerihanna's friend, Alayshia Phillips, 11, was also hit by the car and suffered a foot injury, according to police.
A statement from the DeKalb Sheriff's Office said Fordham was arrested without incident in a parking lot near their headquarters. He was booked into the DeKalb County Jail. Court records show he has faced previous criminal charges of burglary, theft, assault and forgery.
